masses

n

Definition: crowd
Antonyms: elite

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The body of common people in a society. Anxiety about ‘the masses’ is as old as anxiety about democracy (see e.g. Plato; Aristotle). It took clearer shape with eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century writing about the tyranny of the majority (see also Madison; Tocqueville). In his Democracy in America (1835-40), Tocqueville expressed anxiety about the rootlessness and lack of social networks of Americans, who were, as they remain, much more mobile than Europeans: ‘Each of them, living apart, is a stranger to the fate of all the rest.’ However, this sits awkwardly with Tocqueville's admiration for American political activism and their enthusiasm for voluntary associations. Similar difficulties of definition have dogged all attempts to define the ‘masses’ and the nature of the threat they pose to elites or to democratic stability (see also mass society).

Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: the common people generally
  Synonyms: multitude, mass, hoi polloi, people

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Dansk (Danish)
n. pl. - masserne, almindelige mennesker, folk (som de er flest)

Français (French)
n. pl. - (gén) foule, les masses, beaucoup, plein de, foule de, tas de

Deutsch (German)
n. pl. - das gemeine Volk, Masse

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. pl. - μάζες

Italiano (Italian)
masse

Português (Portuguese)
n. pl. - o povo, a massa

Русский (Russian)
большое количество

Español (Spanish)
n. pl. - masas, pueblo, vulgo, concentración, gran cantidad

Svenska (Swedish)
n. pl. - massor

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
群众

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. pl. - 群眾

한국어 (Korean)
n. pl. - 서민, 근로자, 대중

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 庶民

עברית (Hebrew)
n. pl. - ‮המוני-עם, המונים‬

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